In his article “The Revolt of Islam in Syria” (Jerusalem Post, December 12), Jonathan Spyer — senior fellow at the GLORIA Center — points out compelling information about the new Western-backed leadership in Syria.

The bottom line: if this is Syria’s new government, then Syria now has an Islamist regime.

This is happening with the knowledge and collaboration of the Obama administration and a number of European governments. It is a catastrophe, and one that’s taking place due to the deliberate decisions of President Barack Obama and other Western leaders. Even if one rationalizes the Islamist takeover in Egypt as due to internal events, this one is U.S.-made.

As Spyer points out, U.S. and European policy can be summarized as follows:

To align with and strengthen Muslim Brotherhood-associated elements, while painting Salafi forces as the sole real Islamist danger. At the same time, secular forces are ignored or brushed aside.

The new regime, recognized by the United States and most European countries as the legitimate leadership of the Syrian people, is the Syrian National Coalition, which has also established a military council.

Spyer’s detailed evidence for these arguments — much of which comes from raw wire service reports, for which praise is due to Reuters in this case — is undeniable. And if we know about these things, there is no doubt that the highest level of the U.S. government does as well.

Why is this happening? Because Obama and others believe that they can moderate the Muslim Brotherhood and this will tame the Salafists, despite massive evidence to the contrary. This is going to be the biggest foreign policy blunder of the last century, and the cost for it will be high. It should be stressed: such a strategy is totally unnecessary; the alternatives have been ignored; and the real moderates are being betrayed.

Here is some of the proof for these assertions:

– “The founder of the Free Syrian Army, former Syrian Air Force Colonel Riad Asaad, is notably absent [from the leadership]. General Mustafa al-Sheikh, the first of his rank to defect to the rebels, is also not there. Sheikh is known for his fierce opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood. Hussein Haj Ali, the highest ranking officer to defect so far, was similarly absent.” These men are all anti-Islamists.

– “A Reuters report on the new joint military council calculated that the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies account for about two-thirds of the 263 men who met in Antalya and formed the new body. Salafi commanders are also there.” In other words, the Islamists will get the overwhelming share of weapons provided under U.S. sponsorship, Turkish oversight, and Qatari and Saudi financing. And the United States has not objected to the arming of Salafist super-extremists as long as they aren’t affiliated to al-Qaeda.

– “The new council is headed by Brigadier Selim Idriss, who is described as a non-ideological military man. But his deputies, Abdel-basset Tawil of Idleb and Abdel-Qader Saleh of Aleppo governate are associated with the Salafi trend.” In other words, there’s a non-Islamist front man for what will be an Islamist-controlled army.

– “The domination by the Muslim Brotherhood of the new military council mirrors the movement’s leading position in the new civilian leadership body — the Syrian National Coalition. The leader of this coalition is Ahmed Mouaz al-Khatib, former Imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.

“Khatib is closely associated with the Damascus Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. The leader of the new coalition has a long history of anti-Semitic, anti-Western, and anti-Shia remarks. (He praised Saddam Hussein, for example, for “terrifying the Jews” and wrote an article asking if Facebook was an “American-Israeli intelligence website.”) He is also an admirer of the Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood preacher Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

– “Within the body headed by Khatib, the Muslim Brotherhood dominated Syrian National Council controls around 27 of the 65 seats on the executive body of the new coalition. There are also Islamists and fellow travelers among the non-SNC delegates. The Brotherhood is by far the best organized single body within the coalition. One secular delegate at the first full meeting of the coalition accused the MB of `pushing more of its hawks into the coalition, although it already has half of the seats.’”

Let me add two other points:

– The U.S. government backed the previous opposition “leadership,” the Syrian National Council, which was formed as a result of American initiative operating through Islamist Turkey. The fact that this council had a Muslim Brotherhood majority in the leadership did not deter the Obama administration from proclaiming it to be the address for support. Only when the council had clearly failed — and despite the fact that months earlier several moderates had resigned complaining about Brotherhood domination — did the U.S. government change strategy to organizing a new, yet also Muslim Brotherhood-dominated group.

– American intelligence agents in southern Turkey supervise the handover of weapons to the rebels. They make no attempt to stop arms from going to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists while they make no attempt to funnel the guns to moderates. The only restriction is that they not go to al-Qaeda-affiliated Salafists.

One day, those guns will be used to commit unspeakable atrocities against Christians and other minority groups just as they will be used to install an Islamist regime and to kill or intimidate its opponents.

How has the United States handled this threat?

Well, it declared one Salafi group off-limits, because it is linked to al-Qaeda. That’s it.

As Spyer points out, there has been and still is an alternative: for the West to back non-Islamist leaders, including liberals, Arab nationalists, and Kurdish nationalist forces. Such a strategy was not pursued either in Egypt or in Tunisia.

So when Syria gets an anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic (aside from holding elections) regime, don’t be surprised. You can read it in the surprised and grudging admissions of the Western mass media a year or two after this regime takes power, or you can know about it right now.

This outcome might have been inevitable anyway — but I don’t think that’s true. A vigorous policy of supplying non- and anti-Islamist forces while doing nothing to help the Brotherhood and Salafist militias, plus the formation of a non-Islamist dominated political grouping that would receive Western aid could have produced a very different result.

But Western policy, and especially Obama administration policy, is now putting into power yet another anti-Western regime that will oppress its own people and put a high priority on trying to wipe out Israel.

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1.
jojo

We, spectators in the game of foreign policy, credit the experts, the coaches, to goal directed behaviours. To know and understand enough about their game, its rules and players. To have some idea of probable results of tactics and strategies.

As experts how is it they have gone so astray? For example Secretary of State for the Obama Adminstration as latest example?

Or have they?

Much has been achieved within the past half plus century in global politics for what appears with each new blind-siding the true game plan for internationalism.
Managed principally by stand-offs between major players erstwhile Soviet Union/
Russia/China teams for International Communism and the USA as coach for western Judeo-Christian “democracies” substituting for earlier european and world empire teams.

Interestingly the field for these imperial competing teams is now in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa – the field for earlier Judeo-Christian Islam conflicts. Managers of the western teams belittle, dismiss as irrelevant and insignificant, malevolent and malignant when not downright lunatic their own teams and players.

As the foreign policy handbook for esperts contains one crucial, biblical chapter “Cynicism In Pursuit of Power in Democracies” they succeed in seeding great oaks from their ACORNS.

What better way to win any game than to dispirit the winning players and teams.

WHY would any responsible, “caring” team managers deliberately tarnish the winning history and trophies of the winning teams? To what purpose?

THE operative word here is Internationalism. The CENTRALISATION of money and power.

We all know don’t we the more distant the royal court, the head honchoes, the managers and their lackeys are from the people they effect the more difficult it is to keep one’s own life decisions in one’s one hands. BECAUSE WE the People, the teams in the game, CANNOT GET TO the managers.

States Rights in the US and Nation States in Europe fundamental to keeping power in the hands of the People. ALL modern political power gamers attempt to wrest power from the People via their centralised “Unions”. Using “whatever works”.

The elites certainly know that war concentrates power in the hands of government. It is also interesting that after the collapse of the Soviet Union the US has seen more military deployments and “hot” war than it did in the lengthy Cold War period. Combined with vast welfare spending, this has allowed the government to take control over a major percentage of the economy, so much so that spending cuts are said to threaten economic stability.

Now, how to force the US, Canada, Western Europe into one bloc? Well, war with a resurgent Grand Caliphate would fit the bill. Not only would the primary supply of oil be cut off, but global trade would be disrupted and internal security could be wildly ramped up even after just a few terrorist attacks.

In short they could take total control of the economy because of (deliberately) scarce resources, especially oil (think about the drilling bans now) and people’s lives in the of safety, security and “fair” use of resources.

Of course they’ll find out pretty quickly that war and command economies aren’t good in the long run and everything will tumble down, and their manufactured enemy will still be out there and emboldened.

You’re assuming they’ve thought that far ahead. I see no evidence of it. In fact, I see no evidence that this Administration, its European “partners”, or transnational progressives in general, have even the long-term planning acumen of al-Qaeda. (Who would be outmaneuvered by the Underpants Gnomes from South Park in that area.)

No, what I see here is two dynamics at work.

First of all, Obama is enamored of the Mystical East at a boyhood-crush level, and wants only “authentic” mystically-Eastern regimes’ in that region. Ipso facto, they must be not merely Islamic, but radically Islamist, to meet his pseudo-intellectual requirements.

He wanted Mubarak, and Assad, and even Qaddafi out because while all were anti-Western, they weren’t anti-Western enough to satisfy him re their “authenticity”. He dreams of a “glorious rebirth”, not of the Caliphate (a concept he does not take seriously), but of the “mystically-enlightened” Persian Empire of Darius and Xerxes. Which he is convinced will be a shining beacon to us as to how people should “really live”. (I.e., in mud huts, at the mercy of rulers who fancy themselves “god-kings”.)

As for the rest, they, like Obama, are in full-on Henry II of England vs. Thomas Becket mode where Israel is concerned;

Will no one rid us of these turbulent Jews?

Obama sees Israel as a beachhead of the Evil, Materialistic West in the Mystical, Enlightened East. The Eurotrash leaders see Israel as a handicap to “doing business” with the Arab world. As such, both want Israel erased from the map, and preferably from human memory.

And they’re all looking for a Reginald Fitzurse to do the dirty work, so they can show clean hands after the fact.

I genuinely believe that most people not on the “progressive” side credit those on that side with too much ability in the planning department. Not to mention assuming that they’ve ever bothered to actually think. (Remember, they’re all about “feelings”.)

People who are all about “Zenning” their way through life aren’t even good at balancing checkbooks, let alone planning nefarious campaigns to rule the world. They tend to believe that if they just believe hard enough, everything will turn out in their favor.

(In the meantime, they can beat up on people they hate, usually in their own countries, thereby simultaneously assuaging their bully instincts and “proving” to other cultures how “enlightened” they are- or at least, that’s what they think they’re proving.)

I never attribute to Ernst Blofeld-level conspiring what can be more simply explained by a combination of dogma, delusion, greed, and simple stupidity.

It isn’t the Niccolo Machiavellis or Lorenzo de’ Medicis you have to beware of. It’s the Neville Chamberlains, and the Tommaso Portinaris. (See Chapter 8 of Connections by James Burke.)

Stupidity is invariably more disastrous than intriguing. Because there’s just so much more of it around.

There has been a plan afoot since the 1960′s to reorder the world and it seems to be coming to fruition. The plan was to make Asia the manufacturing center of the world by using cheap labor to draw industry out of the West. The US and Europe would be made the financial, entertainment and agricultural centers while the rest would supply natural resources and markets. There is more information out there if you look for it.

This is exactly how things are developing. Perhaps it isn’t as clean as the planners wanted but then the closer they get to their goal the more chaos would naturally be in the system. They may not also have foreseen the greed that would be undermining the Western financial system, or then they might have and are using it to bring about collapse and restructuring.

Point being, the politicians and business frontmen may well be morons, especially the politicians. How better to make people think nothing is going on if the fronts are incredibly stupid or have the wise-grandfather look that makes stupid people trust them?

Indeed. Strategy is for the chiefs. Tactics, the details to effect the strategy for staff officer/Cabinet members/Congress. The drum and bugle corps of the Media/Entertainment/Education their troops.The overall game plan includes flexible responses to “crises not to be wasted”.

The question for spectators is Where and What is the goal or goals? To have any goal requires planning, perseverance and patience. Worked out among the principals behind closed doors.

40 years – enough time? – from 1960 to the Millenium during which “little” wars were useful to fracture an otherwise cohesive major player on the team of the “Christian” West.

Events, “that vsst right-wing conspiracy”, kept the internationalist team/s from the chair/throne at the Millenium. The Millenium as crucial symbol for fundamental CHANGE of the international calendar prevailing among disparate peoples for 2000 years.

The Founding Fathers’ double helix the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the DNA of the USA of the major player for the West, were philosophically Christian. The Founding Fathers of Christianity were “those troublesome Jews”.

The major rival team for the Islamist New Caliphate and the Internatonalist Progressives is the international and in many places growing influence of the Christian Church. For the International Communists the Christian Church was an important rival to their goal for world domination

Many years ago, when the Clinton Administration declared war on the Christian Serbs, I predicted that Israel would become the next target. Nobody believed me back then, but I was right. Chaim ben Pesach knows the score.

Apparently right you were. Jared Israel used to write about the American-NATO war in the Balkans from a ‘left-wing’ perspective which highlighted the pro-Islamic trend under Clinton, including letting al Qaeda migrate into the area. So maybe this is all ‘New World Order’ policy being played out, Obama or no Obama.

Are “liberals, Arab nationalists, and Kurdish nationalist forces” really that much less “anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic”? Are the two viewpoints mutually exclusive?
What about those Syrians who support the first group? Would they make sacrifices to see a peaceful government come to power or would they back the MB in the end? Opposing the MB doesn’t necessarily render you a secularist or make your views pro-Western.

True, but Assad is/was a practical schemer who knew his limits and would not push past them. If the new regime turns out to be MB, it will not recognize any limits unless the US flips again and chokes it off.

Mr, Rubin,
All The points you outline are valid, but also are irrelevant. The future of Syria will not be determined neither by Obama or his allies in Turkey, Saudi Arabia or anyone else. The future of Syria will be determined By only one man PUTIN. Just yesterday Erdoğan tried to get Putin’s blessing with no avail.- see link below- Do you think Putin is ready to abandon Mediterranean port just to please Hussein O? Putin will do anything to secure Russian interest and he’s not ready to give up on Assad yet and Obama has no guts to go against Putin anyway.
The only possible outcome will be a divided Syria which will unleashed many more revolutions and bloodshed all over the region.

Why feign shock? Obama laid his cards on the table in Cairo. He sealed the casket when he stood aside when Iranians were in the street. Now he is re-elected and before he leaves office he will openly declare he is a ” born again ” muslim. His goal has been obvious to anyone willing to think things through. You must ignore the rhetoric and look only at actions and results. The Caliphate is not limited by geography or proximity to the Middle East. Obama has not just imported European anti-semitism to America. He has elevated Islam as first among others no longer equal. By the time the liberals wake up it will be too late.

Obama has not succeeded in demonizing Israel to the American people. Perhaps there are too many of us Christians for that to go over well. But with the stupid or non-caring public and politicians in great supply, we do have a fight on our hands. The House can defund Obama’s efforts and should. I am sick about this for I too saw it coming with Clinton’s mollycoddling Arafat endlessly and Bosnia, and no one listened. Now what do we do about it?

I saw the light a few years ago, and I am deeply ashamed of my ignorance towards the history around Israel. This is presented in the western media in a totally one-sided, jew-hating way. Most of my erstwhile leftwing friends are still operating with “facts” that are entirely biased in the favour of the aggressors (the muslims). Which means, in every discussion I have with them on the subject, I trounce them.

I was one of those people who boycotted Israeli goods for 25 years. Now, I go out of my way to buy them (especially if I see muslims/neo-fascist leftists protesting outside some jewish business.

When I visited Israel a couple of years ago, I was so surprised. It is one of the nicest places I’ve ever been. People are really nice to each other, and I have never felt so safe. The only time I felt hostility was when we were being driven by a taxi-driver who asked if we were christians (we are atheists). We said “No”, and from that moment on he was rude and obnoxious to us (I suspect he thought we were jews).

Our involvement in the ME to effect some kind of direction favorable to us in the outcome is like using a canoe paddle deployed on rudderless oil tanker attempting to effect a favorable change of direction. Israel will be overrun by these nut-jobs – and they’ll do it with American supplied arms. The hand-writing is on the wall.

“Israel will be overrun by these nut-jobs – and they’ll do it with American supplied arms. The hand-writing is on the wall.”

I don’t think you quite understand the concept of the Masada Complex or the Sampson Option. When we say never again, take it at it’s face value. It means we survive or everybody goes with us. Choice is yours to make and implement what’s necessary to stop it.

Actually few would argue that the Moslem Brotherhood would not mind having their culture blown to bits if it meant Israel would also be destroyed. Think in terms of first strike. Save the MAD option for the Euro-lefties, they value themselves more.

Obama never had any intentions of taming the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama and his closest allies are playing a game of chicken to see who stabs who in the back first.

Obama with his childhood (and enduring) love of the Arab World, which he sees himself as the savior of, THE ONE who can uplift the Arab World into a global power, the envy of the world, a return to the Glory Days of Baghdad as the Cradle of Civilization and Center of Philosophy.

His erstwhile Muslim allies, who see him as an easily manipulated enabler of Jihad, even if they have to play the long game instead of the short game for now.

His Global Power Elites, who see him as useful to wither away Western Powers in order to set up a permanent centralized Ivory Tower Ruling Class.

And, of course, the Black Bloc Anarchists (and to an extent the Greenies), who just want to send it all crashing down.

“To align with and strengthen Muslim Brotherhood-associated elements, while painting Salafi forces as the sole real Islamist danger. At the same time, secular forces are ignored or brushed aside.”

I think there is enough evidence here now that Obama and Clinton are determined to either destroy Israel, or at least reduce its strength in the region to force it to agree to any “peace” agreement that is forced down its throat. Radical Islamist regimes are now not only being allowed to border Israel, such as in Egypt, Lebanon (which is pretty much run by Hezbollah), and Syria, but it is being encouraged by the Obama administration in Muslim countries that are not that far away from Israel, such as Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. And it’s only a matter of time before Obama throws the King of Jordan under the bus and there is another Islamic regime in yet another country that borders Israel. If Obama can’t force Israel to accept “peace” on his terms, then maybe he can intimidate them into doing what he wants by having them surrounded by radical Islamist enemies that want nothing more than Israel wiped off the map permanently. Obama probably thinks that Israel will be much more “amenable” to treaty terms once it knows it’s on the brink of destruction.

If the Jews did not bend at Masada, if they did not give up in 1948 and every arab war since then, they will NOT give in to Obama. The Jews have already been on the receiving end of one Holocaust. They are not about to endure another. Obama is playing a very, very, dangerous game here. Once Iran gets its nuclear bomb, that may be the tipping point and then one side will have to act. And then Obama’s miscalculations will become painfully clear when we start seeing cities in the Middle East disappear in mushroom clouds.

I’m sorry. I think too many people are crediting Obama with being smarter than he actually is. This is a man who thinks you can stop drilling for oil if you get your car tuned up and put more air in your tires. He is just a pawn being used by the leftist anti Semites, to destroy Israel! He isn’t smart! Why do you think he won’t show his affirmative action grades?

He’s not bright, but he has a hard and fast and very determined agenda, a characteristic often typical of the not-bright.

Obama’s own history coupled with behaviors towards Israel and Netanyahu during the first term, it doesn’t seem extreme to conclude (despite paeans to the contrary) that Obama hates Israel and wants to punish it just as he hates “imperialist” America and wants to punish it.

Why do you think he won’t show his affirmative action grades?

Mostly C’s and lots of “incompletes” at Columbia.

According to one of the few individuals on the planet who claims to have attended at the same time.

I’m going with that until The One™ dares reveal his college transcripts.

I was at Columbia at the time. At least we overlapped, though I didn’t know him nor anyone who did.

Who knows what kind of grades he got, but if it’s true that he got C’s, that would be pretty bad. Unless you took a quantitative course, where you didn’t do the work or weren’t very good, you couldn’t really get a C. And something tells me Obama didn’t take a lot of quantitative course. Also, if it’s true that he did poorly, that doesn’t say a lot for Harvard.

I reckon that Obama is quickly coming to the end of his tether also … he is not that smart, but he loves to tell people what they want to hear, just like a good con-man. He’s had enough of being told what to do, but he is gonna have to come clean, especially if he want a special place in the real history of this nation.

BHO is a man whose time has come: shallow, immature, a two-dimensional caricature of a leader with absolutely no real substance, without interest or regard to anything other than his vanity. He could, however, make a good guest appearance on Friends. Unfortunately in contemporary America being able to make a good guest appearance on Friends is the most important qualification for office.

To be clear: does Mr. Rubin advocate that we support the current regime in Syria? If not, what is the alternative? Create a new puppet regime that isn’t Assad but also isn’t Islamic? And how would we do that? Military force? Diplomacy? Treachery? The US can no longer dictate what happens everywhere in the world. We can influence, but not ensure outcomes. That is the reality of a declining empire.

Pushing Islamist as a counterbalance to left-leaning secularist was staple of US Middle Eastern Policy. However, since fall of Soviet union it does not have sense. Despite that, Islamist were installed in Iraq, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. If Syria falls, that will be the end of Arab secularism and start of new Cold War, with Caliphate as substitute to Soviet Union. I’m not fan of Israeli politics but many ordinary people certainly don’t deserve to be forlorn hope against medieval theocracy. However, destiny of any liberal Arab will be lot worse: Salafist yoke.

By his 20 year attendance in Jeromy Wright’s so-called church, by his saying “The Arabic Call to Prayer is the most beautiful sound on Earth”, by his celebrating Ramadan in the White House, by his 2009 speech in Cairo praising Islam, by his call to go back to the pre 1967 war borders, by his giving the Muslim Brotherhood and their auxiliaries entrance to the White House, the State Department and even the military, by his deep bowing to the Saudi King, by his declaring “The future does not belong to those who insult the prophet of Islam” – By each of these things Obama’s calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer is almost inconceivable.

Barry Rubin nailed it, no doubt about it. But this entire Islamist-inspired by Obama & the Euros-scene is going to bite the US especially very hard before it collapses of its own weight. First, there will be Islamist riots and wars with other Islamists over just who is the Chief Islamist. And those riots and wars will take many, many years to figure out, if ever. Then, we have the many different sects of Islamism arguing with each other which is the Islamic Chief.

Meanwhile, Obama and other arrogant, unthoughtful “leaders” will be gone and probably dead by that time. So what Barry Rubin’s very accurate article also does is tell us how extremely stupid the US govt really is. We already know that Eurabia is along for any anti-Semitic ride…..even while their own nation go down in silent ruins.

I saw this coming and I’ve been saying so since the beginning when most of the left was celebrating the Arab Spring coming to Syria and most of the right was eager to see an ally of Iran get overthrown and not caring by whom. Maybe Obama should appoint me as Secretary of State or Defense.

The best US policy for Syria in my opinion is to keep MB and Hezbollah fighting each other and document the flow of supplies for future police action. That means letting Russia re-arm Assad and reducing the US role to oversight alone. For the endgame, between the choices of the MB, the Baathists, or a weakened Baathist party relying even more heavily on Iran, keeping Assad in power is the least bad choice.

It might not be that bad for Israel. Please consider:
1. Egypt is in the hands of MB. Do they wish to eliminate Israel? No doubt. Can they? No way, and they KNOW it.
2. Did Assad wish to eliminate Israel? No doubt. Could he? No way, and he knew it.
3. Will MB in Syria wish to eliminate Israel? No doubt. Will they be able to do it? Even they KNOW they can not.
4. Would the replacement secular gov. in Syria still want to eliminate Israel? No doubt. Would they be able to do something about it? Surprisingly, yes. The US and Europe will look favorably to pressure Israel on Golans “to show the support for new democratic Syria”
So tell me what is better for Israel?

The very first comment to this brilliant article shows myself why I visit this website daily. While I disagree with much of the anti-Islamic hysteria (at times wondering if I am reading Pamela Geller), and believe Islam is being set up for the “Clash of Civilizations”, it is quite obvious that the intent of the globalists is the destruction of the West. For those in Israel, consider yourselves sitting on the edge of Mordor. Then ask, “is my government working for my interests or that of a globalist empire?” Many of us in the U.S. have figured out the answer to that question regarding our own government, but unfortunately, the majority are still clueless. Good luck, Israel, when the Orcs show up on the Golan. Fortunately, without direct military intervention, it seems Assad is not about to be overthrown. If he is, Israel perhaps should immediately invade. If Israel does not do so, the Islamist fighters will be armed with some rather effective Soviet/Russian weaponry, such as advanced AT missiles and MLRS’s, not to speak of the AA missiles we are shipping to them, or the alleged “chemical weapons”. The Caliphate historically included all of the Levant, and the savages will stop at nothing less. Israel should ask why it’s “allies” are surrounding it with Islamist states. I personally believe the intent is not even to control the jihadis, but to simply unleash them. During the Vietnam war, our globalist allies shipped grain to the North Vietnamese, to extend the war and hence profits. There will be much profit in arming Israel to face jihadis who bear the arsenals of Libya, Egypt, Syria, and perhaps Jordan.